The apparel global value chain (GVC) has been one of the hallmark cases of globalization, since the establishment of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) in the early 1970s through the phase-out of the MFA in 2005. The MFA quota system sparked the spread of global production in apparel to every corner of the globe.

Duke GVC Center researchers have tracked global apparel trends in multiple projects, publications and websites. The apparel industry is analyzed in the North Carolina in the Global Economy website, and it is also one of the four industries covered in a Duke GVC Center report on Skills for Upgrading: Workforce Development and GVCs in Developing Countries. Gary Gereffi and Stacey Frederick have published several articles on apparel GVCs, including a chapter in the World Bank book by Cattaneo, Gereffi and Staritz (eds.), Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World: A Development Perspective (2010), and Frederick has collaborated with Cornelia Staritz in developing a series of detailed country case studies for another World Bank book by Lopez—Acevedo and Robertson (eds.), Sewing Success? Employment, Wages and Poverty Following the End of the Multi-fibre Arrangement (2012).

The Global Apparel Value Chain, Trade and the Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

Development and Application of a Value Chain Research Approach to Understand and Evaluate Internal and External Factors and Relationships Affecting the Economic Competitiveness in the Textile Value Chain